Durbin: No choice but to vote for war-funding bill

Saturday

May 26, 2007 at 12:01 AMMay 26, 2007 at 10:28 PM

SPRINGFIELD -- U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday he voted a day earlier for an Iraq war funding bill without a timeline for troop withdrawal because of his desire to support the American troops.

Bernard Schoenburg

By BERNARD SCHOENBURG

POLITICAL WRITER

SPRINGFIELD -- U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday he voted a day earlier for an Iraq war funding bill without a timeline for troop withdrawal because of his desire to support the American troops.

Durbin backs U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president, and Obama voted against the funding bill — a result, Durbin said, of a difficult choice.

“We were put in an impossible situation,” Durbin said after an afternoon question-and-answer session at American Legion Post 809 in Springfield. The bill before the Senate, he said, included “no timetable, which is what Senator Obama and I both want, and funding for the troops.”

“You can look at it from either perspective,” he added. “You can say without a timetable, I can’t vote for it, or you can say I always promised I’d vote for the troops.”

“We came to different conclusions,” Durbin said, adding that debates on the future of the war will come again soon in Congress. “Barack Obama and I agree on the same thing. We need to start bringing our troops home from Iraq.”

As for his own vote, Durbin said, “I’ve been against this war from the start. I’ve voted for every piece of legislation for a timetable to start bringing these troops home. But I made a promise at the beginning to myself, and I’m going to keep it — I am not going to shortchange these troops when it comes to the money they need. We can change the policy, and I’ll vote to change it. But, boy, cutting off funds is just not something I can vote for.”

Durbin noted that while the entire bill was about $119 billion, $5 billion is for military and veterans’ medical care, including $600 million to treat traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress syndrome. In backing funds for needed treatment for wounded soldiers, Durbin said, “We’re not going to cut any corners here.”

Another Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, joined Obama in voting against the funding bill, while GOP contender and U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona voted for it. The difference set off a round of political shots.

McCain called the Clinton and Obama votes a “policy of surrender,” while Obama issued a statement saying the country is “united in support of our troops, but we also owe them a plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else’s civil war.”

Durbin, at Post 809, told a crowd of about 50 people, mostly veterans, that he would “keep voting to turn the corner” to get U.S. troops out of Iraq in future legislation. He said he credited President Bush for getting congressional approval in 2002 to use force in Iraq, but added that the main justifications for that war — to topple Saddam Hussein and to protect against use of weapons of mass destruction or development of a nuclear capability — are all now past.

He said he believes no votes would have gone the president’s way had he asked for U.S. troops to get in the middle of a 14-century-old civil war between religious groups.

Asked by an audience member if he believes the president thinks the United States is winning the Iraq war, Durbin said, “I don’t see how he can reach that conclusion.”

Bernard Schoenburg can be reached at (217) 788-1540 or bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com.